u object to Major Fletcher?" Beryl's tone was slightly
aggressive.

Lord Ronald hesitated a little.

"He isn't much liked," he told her vaguely.

She frowned.

"But that is no answer. Are you afraid to answer me?"

He laughed at that, laughed easily and naturally, in the tolerant
fashion that most exasperated her.

"Oh, no; I'm not afraid. But I don't like hurting people's
feelings--especially yours."

"I do not see how that is possible," she rejoined, with dignity, "where
my feelings are not concerned."

"Ah, but that's where it is," he responded. "You like Fletcher well
enough to be extremely indignant if anyone were to tell you that he is
not a nice person for you to know."

"I object to unpleasant insinuations regarding any one," she said, with
slightly heightened colour. "They always appear to me cowardly."

"Yes; but you asked, you know," Lord Ronald reminded her gently.

Her colour deepened. It was not often that he got the better of her; not
often, indeed, that he exerted himself to do so. She began to wish
ardently that he would go. Really, he was quite insufferable to-day.

Had he been a man of any perception whatever she would almost have
thought that he fathomed her desire, for at this point he rose in a
leisurely fashion as though upon the point of departure.

She rose also from behind the tea-table with a little inward pricking of
conscience for wishing him gone. She wondered if he deemed her
inhospitable, but if he did he disguised it very carefully, for his eyes
held nothing but friendliness as they met her own.

"Has it never occurred to you," he said, "that you lead a very
unprotected existence here?"

Something in his expression checked her first impulse to resent the
question. Her lip quivered unexpectedly.

"Now and then," she said.

"Are you a man-hater?" he asked deliberately.

She laughed a little.

"Why do you ask such an absurd question?"

He seemed to hesitate momentarily.

"Because--forgive me--wouldn't you be a good deal happier if you were to
marry again?"

Again her colour rose hotly. What did the man mean by assuming this
attitude? Was he about to plead his own cause, or that of another?

"I think it exceedingly doubtful," she replied stiffly, meeting his
steady eyes with a hint of defiance.

"You have never thought of such a thing perhaps?" he suggested.

She smiled a woman's pitying smile.

"Of course I have thought of it."

"Then you have not yet met